(Part
1,
2 here)
While not the first, Reinvent’s cross marketing promotion of BlackFriday.com yesterday reminded me of the potential of this concept. How does it work?
This is how Reinvent does it:
Benefits:
1. By sending a user to another parked domain you may prequalify him (if the advertised domain contains strong descriptive keywords).
2. Advertised parked page then may display higher paid ads, resulting in increase to your bottom line.
3. Visual branding (ad) may result in user remembering the domain later in the day/week/month.
It would also make sense to look at the categories the domains are, and cross market accordingly. For example, BlackFriday.com ads make perfect sense on shopping related domains however not as much for disease related domains, or education related domains.
If you have any experience with cross marketing I would love to hear more about it. Any other related concepts, discussion is most welcome.
Have a great day,
Sahar
Published on November 28, 2008
in Business.
Black Friday and my family and I stayed home - no shopping for us. Here are three reasons why we are staying home:
1. Do you know how the economy will look like tomorrow? Do you know if your income will sustain tomorrow? I don’t either.
2. Our TV/Refrigerator/Dishwasher works fine - no need to upgrade to the latest model, especially not today.
3. Over the last few years I learned, stores are not to be trusted, impulse buying is stupid buying. A while ago I walked into a local wine store to buy a gift for Darren. I found a bottle of wine I liked, the store owner quoted me the price of 500$, he said he will give me 100$ discount as well. Happy me I paid for the bottle, took it to the office, and made Darren’s day. When I got home I was curious how much this bottle goes for online. How about 179.99??. Never again!
Did you go shopping today? Did anything change for you from past years? It’s definitely going to be interesting to see stores’ numbers come Monday.
On that note, seems like Reinvent (image above) are pushing the domain BlackFriday.com across their properties. Part 3 (part 1, 2 here) tomorrow, similar to what Reinvent, CCIN, RMG and others are doing, I plan to explore further cross-marketing and how it can help your business.
Have a great day,
Sahar
More thinking how this series will continue, I think I will focus daily on one area which can be improved. That way we will ensure each area is being discussed thoroughly where we can all understand the issues better, and hopefully be able to make better decisions.
Today let’s talk about mindshare. I wrote about it before but I never feel enough was said, and definitely not done. One of the best examples of increasing domain midshare collectively I can think of is Associated Cities. What are they doing right? If you visit Richmond.com, one of Associated Cities partner sites, on the bottom of the page you will see the following:
On short, they are doing two things here:
1. Helping one another grow
2. Teaching/Reinforcing with their users that a regional .com domain is where to look for when searching for local information.
What happens if one applies this concept to other categories, such as car related domains, food related domains, sports related domains, etc? And what if we all participate in it with our domains, as I wrote before, reinforcing the type-in behavior? It won’t just affect our bottom lines in terms of more clicks/visits, but it will exponentially increase the value of our properties. Is this a good concept we should be involved with and if so, why then is this still being ignored still by parking companies, the ones who control our domains for the most part?
Part 3 is coming up tomorrow. Have a great day!
Sahar
This is the first in a series of flowcharts to describe how domains are currently monetized, and how they could be monetized. The purpose of this is to initiate a discussion and hopefully influence those who can to do a better job serving our needs, that is, monetize our domain names better.
Does the above make sense to you? Is it really the best we can do? What about domain branding, channel branding (mindshare), repeat traffic, SEO? Can we do better by keeping the user longer? What else are we missing here? I welcome your thoughts here.
Tomorrow’s chart, I will try to touch on what a parked domain could be.
Have a great day, and happy thanksgiving to all!
Sahar
(
image source)
In the comment section for this post Jeff Overman writes:
I surly miss your posts each day but understand…your a very busy man with your fun developments going on…
Over the years many thought because of all the projects we have, all the businesses, I must be extremely busy. That is not the case. Since the very early days of getting in business I was extremely obsessed with risk management. I wrote about it here and also managed to get Michael Weisman of Recall Media Group to write a guest post about the subject here. The idea for me is to build security layers that if anything happens to anyone the businesses will continue to strive on their own. A view from the top at risk management may tell you that it is all about building a healthy living ecosystem, one that maintains itself, expands itself. If done right you can unplug yourself from it and watch it grow. If done wrong, unplug yourself and the house of cards collapses with it. Our organization is built in a way that if I suddenly disappear, or any other person/principal in the company for that matter, the organization will continue to strive, continue to expand, continue to grow. Building an organization such as RMG is not an easy task. It requires a lot of planning, adding many building blocks when needed to the structure, taking care of legal structures and adjusting as we go along, banking systems, communication systems, tech, and more. The most important part though in building such as organization, while it may sounds like a Cliché, is the people in the organization. The mindset of these should be of growth, excitement, a feeling of taking over the world, a feeling of making things happen. The people in a healthy organization care for one another, first as human beings and only then as business associates. We tend to run the business as a healthy family. There is us as individuals, and then there is us as a whole.
Building RMG with risk management in mind allows me to be completely unplugged from the daily involvements of the organization. I can count on my partners and all those with the organization to push the business forward, whether I’m around or not. My thought process here is something I’m sure many of you can relate to: What if I’m not around tomorrow? Who will support my family? my loved ones? And while the job of building such an organization is never done, and at times I’m plugged in 24/7 to add or change blocks to the structure, I would say it is not just something you want to do, it is something you must do. If built right, this is what real financial security is all about - the ability to be unplugged from your business, for whatever reason that may be, where the business won’t just maintain itself, won’t just survive, but grow.
Have a great day,
Sahar
Published on November 25, 2008
in Business.
(
image source)
In good times and tough times, in a world of anonymity and scam artists prying the next target at every corner of the web, it is important to positively stand out from the crowd. When you stand out from the crowd your partners will treat you differently. When things happen that are out of your partners’ control, if you created the right dynamics in the relationship, you are likely to get the word out before others, an advance notice which may provide an advantage on the whole marketplace, or maybe save you from upcoming legal trouble. When you stand out from the crowd, when you have trust built in the relationship with your partners, when things may look suspicious in your account for one reason or another, they will first call and check with you what is going on rather than as it happens quite often, suspend your account and ask questions later (if that). When you stand out from the crowd in the community you provide added value to your partners, as you are viewed by many, partners and associates, as an influencer- that is, others in the community are influenced by your words, and more importantly - your actions. I truly believe the added value provided by standing out adds up, and while it is hard to impossible at times to quantify, I believe you are always better off standing out than you are not.
Have a great day,
Sahar
So I’m thinking to get back to the blog but am not sure yet how to, it’s been a while!
Let’s give it a shot then.
The one thing that is on everybody’s mind these days is the economy. While I have no answers here I do suggest to preserve cash, be ultra conservative until things clear out a little. As domainers who are reliant on upstream providers/partners, there is that option that if they go through rough times (and majority of domain partners do these days) we will as well. This is a trickle-down effect that we need to keep in our mind. However, fear and turmoil provides extreme opportunities as well and is providing us with the opportunities of finding income alternatives, explore new territories. I remember when I first started in the domain business back in November 1999 I didn’t get the memo it was rough times ahead for dot com companies, and when friends and associates in 2000 kept asking me how my new internet business was doing and if we are feeling the rough time in the business my answer was “what rough times??”. Many tend to think this time it is different and they may be right, but for you and me, does it really matter? If you keep pushing yourself further, trying new things, learning new skills, exploring possibilities, ventures, and deal making, rough times or not, you end up moving forward, and that of course cannot be bad either way.
And the smartest thing you can do these days? increase your income potential. If you know nothing but domains maybe you should explore learning something new? In my opinion the true measure of financial independence is the ability to create income streams at will. Do you own more than one income stream? Can your business survive if one segment of the industry falls? if one or all of your partners go out of business? Can you keep your lifestyle if your income drop by 20%? and what about 80%? and for how long? You don’t need to answer these questions to me, but if you do take the time to ponder on these hard questions, do yourself a favor and be honest with yourself. At the end of the day, it is not where you are, it is where you are going to be.
Have a great day!
Sahar
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